Realistic Leveling

Realistic Leveling ==================

Version: 1. 14 Author: Donovan Baarda (abo@minkirri.apana.org.au)

ATTENTION: This mod requires OBSE v0020 or greater, and should be installed with OBMM v1. 1. 2 or greater!

This mod changes leveling and attribute advances to be more realistic and provide better game play. Level and attributes will increase naturally as your skills improve, without the need to micromanage them or worry about what skills to use to optimise your advancement.

Inspired by the mods "NaturalLeveling and More" by InbredMonkey, "Simplified Leveling" by Digizen, "Kobu's Character Advancement System" by Kobu, "AF Level Mod" by Auryn and Fraktyl, and "Better Leveling" by grandcalabash. Designed to work together with Realistic Fatigue and Realistic Health, but does not require them. Also works together well with any skill advancement mods including Progress, which is available as an OMOD with install script in ABOs OMOD Collection.

Introduction ------------

This is a modification for Elderscrolls:Oblivion that improves how attribute and level advancement works. It attempts do to it in a way that is minimal and clean, without excessive overhauling or scripting. It avoids excessive configurability and options, focusing instead on making it right and keeping it simple. It also aims to be as compatible with other mods as possible.

In Vanilla Oblivion, there are many flaws with how attributes and levels advance. These flaws encourage bizarre behaviour to optimise advancement, like avoiding certain skills to delay leveling, intentionally using "out of character" skills to boost attributes, or focusing on endurance skills early to boost your health at later levels. The game turns into an annoying task of micro-managing and tracking skill advancements to "make sure I get +5 strength next level". I find this neither realistic nor fun.

There are also flaws in how attributes and skills are set when starting. Class skills and racial bonuses mean some skills get an initial boost with no regard for how this affects advancement. In practices this initial boost means there is less advancement room left for that skill, which means less advancement opportunity for the corresponding attribute. Stacking your class skills on top of your class specialisation and and race bonuses can give you a high initial skill level, which ironically can mean you cannot max out the corresponding attribute.

There are many other mods that attempt to address these problems, but none of them matched my requirements. Most of them have their own flaws in how advancement works. Some of them were too complicated and changed the game too much. Most of them had bugs or incompatibilities with other mods that introduced new races or abilities. Many of them require you start a new character. All of them fail to take into account the advancement impact of initial class skills.

I wanted a leveling mod that was simple, unobtrusive, and natural. I want advancement to be smooth, w